@ogreb: it depends on the way you play. After 10th playthrough there's just some fairly irrelevant bits that have no bearing at all. You've proven you can do it, why go through the motions again and again? Often the things that are "cheated" are repetitive, boring chores that require no skill whatsoever, only time. I doubt people play the game so they can fill their inventories with Lynx Eyes and Leather Armor and spend 5 minutes walking to the shop to sell them for 500g.
What are you talking about? Inventory management is like a game within a game. I live for that stuff =p
I am shocked to the core... Apart from a little character start up manipulation my cheating pants are veritably clean compared to the skid marks of articulated lorry pile ups that appear to be in other peoples cheating knickers...
...
Doesn't anyone else make people invisible, block the doors and shoot the nasties from afar?
Doesn't anyone else make people invisible, block the doors and shoot the nasties from afar?
Nay.. I think it isn't much needed once you have the knowledge to metagame, but LoS/door/cloudkill etc abuse are all on my list of things not to do, along with very restricted potion, scroll and wand usage. Above all I feel (boss) fights won that way are just way too anticlimactic. In fact most of the reloading I do is probably when a boss encounter doesn't play out dramatically enough (drawn out battle, losses on both sides, wounded protagonist and heroic effort killing blow).
@ogreb: it depends on the way you play. After 10th playthrough there's just some fairly irrelevant bits that have no bearing at all. You've proven you can do it, why go through the motions again and again? Often the things that are "cheated" are repetitive, boring chores that require no skill whatsoever, only time. I doubt people play the game so they can fill their inventories with Lynx Eyes and Leather Armor and spend 5 minutes walking to the shop to sell them for 500g.
That's not general advice, of course, but it's a justifiable personal preference, slippery slope not withstanding.
This is generally my mind set. I like to play a game normally the first few times through. Afterwards I like to try tweaking things using cheats/editors etc just to spice things up or avoid things I didn't enjoy. It generally makes the game last longer for me cause I can play in new/unintended ways.
I think I once (years ago) enabled the cheat console just out of curiosity, to see how it worked. Apart from that experiment, I've never enabled it before or since.
However, if I were faced with a serious glitch or bug (such as a critical item erroneously failing to spawn when it needed to do so), and if re-loading a saved game was failing to solve the problem, then I'd consider using the console as a legitimate solution to the bug. The need has never arisen, so far ... .
On the other hand, I do use EEkeeper, although not for anything which has any effect on gameplay - just cosmetic changes and so forth. I don't cheat my stat rolls with it, or anything like that - if I want better stats, I do it the hard way by re-rolling until I've got what I want legitimately.
Often the things that are "cheated" are repetitive, boring chores that require no skill whatsoever, only time. I doubt people play the game so they can fill their inventories with Lynx Eyes and Leather Armor and spend 5 minutes walking to the shop to sell them for 500g.
Coming to think of it - I've actually never used EEkeeper to give me money. I pick up all the loot and sell it! ALL. OF. IT.
I've used cheat code in some games, but never in Baldur's Gate. The only "cheating" I ever did was my first playthrough of BG2 I couldn't figure out how to beat the Demi Lich, so I Googled for the solution (mace of disruption), which I then went and got and came back to the Demi Lich later when I had it.
Now, if you count reloading save games, then yes, I do that all the time.
Oh yeah, I reload all the time. That's what 'Q' is for isn't it? Out of interest where do you legitimately find the mace of disruption?
I used to import ToB characters back to SoA. I don't anymore though, because the way dungeons scale encounters with levels means that you are fighting a Lich every 3 seconds. Also cheating is bad. >=(
I don't enable the console for the same reason I don't buy ice-cream. I am quite bad at resisting temptation past a certain point. If there's a barrier - like going to physically buy the ice-cream - then no problem. But once it's easily available...
Same with the console. I quite like getting stuff early on. But if I need to leave the game, twiddle with the .ini and find item codes then no deal. Must not turn on console
I Ctrl+j EVERYWHERE. I never do it to skip over content but I'll do it to get back to the entrance of a dungeon or map. Since enemies respawn in some places, I do feel that I cheat a bit. but come on! Walking is so slow and pathing isn't that great.
Comments
I am shocked to the core... Apart from a little character start up manipulation my cheating pants are veritably clean compared to the skid marks of articulated lorry pile ups that appear to be in other peoples cheating knickers...
...
Doesn't anyone else make people invisible, block the doors and shoot the nasties from afar?
However, if I were faced with a serious glitch or bug (such as a critical item erroneously failing to spawn when it needed to do so), and if re-loading a saved game was failing to solve the problem, then I'd consider using the console as a legitimate solution to the bug. The need has never arisen, so far ... .
On the other hand, I do use EEkeeper, although not for anything which has any effect on gameplay - just cosmetic changes and so forth. I don't cheat my stat rolls with it, or anything like that - if I want better stats, I do it the hard way by re-rolling until I've got what I want legitimately.
ALL. OF. IT.
Same with the console. I quite like getting stuff early on. But if I need to leave the game, twiddle with the .ini and find item codes then no deal. Must not turn on console
I probably remember most of them, but it's just easier to CTRL+4. Then I can just walk my thief right up to the edge.